


Daundubhī

by avani



Category: Hindu Religions & Lore, Mahabharata - Vyasa
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-23
Updated: 2019-04-23
Packaged: 2020-01-31 12:30:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18591316
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/avani/pseuds/avani
Summary: They have one year together. (It's not enough.)





	Daundubhī

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MayavanavihariniHarini](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MayavanavihariniHarini/gifts).



> daundubhī (Sanskrit): the journey of the bridegroom to the bride.  
> For mayavanavihariniharini! I hope you enjoy this <3 !

Mother weeps when leaving Bhima behind. Of course she does; having devoted so much of her life to keep her sons alive, separation from one of them should be painful, only—It doesn’t matter.

“I’ve the strength of ten thousand elephants,” he reminds Mother in a cheerful rumble. “What can happen to me?”

“And the wisdom of one, at best!” Mother snaps after a last sniffle, but despite herself she smiles. “Now mind your manners and keep away from anywhere your cousins might find you—“

“I hope they do,” Bhima replies. “I hope they’re fool enough to stumble into my path, so I can tear their damned heads from their damned bodies—“

“For shame—“ Old habits of bidding him to mind his tongue in the hallways of Hastinapur do not die easily even in the wilds— “Is that any way to speak? And you with a new wife’s feelings to consider now, too.”

All too well he knows the chances he would offend his wife’s delicate sensibilities: those that certainly hadn’t suffered leading her own brother to his death. “Hidimbi would help. The benefits, I suppose, of being married to a demoness.”

Mother scoffs, but at least she’s not crying any longer. “I wash my hands of you both. Dear daughter,” and Hidimbi hums in response, “do your best to make a gentleman out of my rough son, and forgive his faults for my sake.”

“Certainly I shall try,” promises his bride, gaze demurely lowered, but still Bhima can see: her eyes are laughing.

*

The oddest thing is the absence of his brothers: always, in cottage or citadel or Master Drona’s compound, he has known them to be nearby. Even those hours, dream-like now, spent at the bottom of Mother Ganga were full of the assurances that all four of them must be just on the other side of the surface. Now? Now they are lost to him, and perhaps it is better this way. Should that fool Duryodhana surprise him, Bhima won’t be able to betray his brothers’ whereabouts, and should his resolve fail him during this year he must spend as a demoness’ husband, at least he won’t be tempted to join them. Let them send word to him, when summer comes again.

The second oddest thing is that he is the first to wed, even if he is the second-born. It ought not to be that way, and indeed wouldn’t have been if his uncle’s mongrel sons hadn’t interfered; Mother and Yudhisthira had been deep in negotiations with the King of Sivi for his daughter’s hand before they had left for Varnavrat, imagining it would be no more than a few weeks’ stay. Already, Mother had warned them, she was exhausted with the business of being a prospective groom’s mother, the preparations and promises and pretenses: while Arjuna couldn’t be trusted and the twins were too much her darlings, Bhima would do better to find a bride himself and spare her the trouble.

Little had she known what would come of her ill-chosen words.

*

Bhima cannot bear to live either in his original campsite — too heavy with memories of his brothers—or his wife’s cave—too dark with traces of hers—and so he builds them a house of their own. Hidimbi murmurs her gratitude, but he suspects a dwelling of wood, however warm it might be, is not so much to her tastes as one of stone, and that all the furs he drapes on their bed strike her as ridiculous. He has learned many things, from the slope of her smile to her quiet irony. 

“My cousins called me a demon, when we were young,” he remarks in passing, before remembering who he addresses, but rather than take offense, she laughs aloud for the first time he remembers.

“Perhaps they knew you better than you knew yourself.”

*

“Do you think of your brothers?” she asks, on moonless nights.

“Yes,” he admits; honesty is the very least he owes her. “Every morning and every night.” He hesitates, before gathering all his courage. “Do you think of--”

“No,” she says, in a voice so flat it must be a lie, and turns her head. 

*

“We will have a son,” Bhima decides. “A son, who can keep these forests and his mother safe.”

Hidimbi mumbles the last of her prayers--surprisingly pious, his bride, more so than anyone he’s ever met save Aunt Gandhari--and wrinkles her nose at him. “And a daughter might not? You do my fellow demonesses a great disservice.”

Bhima was raised among one hundred and five rowdy boys and only one girl, and for that matter little Dushala had had no time or patience for her brothers’ bully. He colors, all too aware he has blundered; but when has he ever passed up a chance to make things worse? “Well--that is--naturally you needed my help to be rescued from your--”

“Pray don’t think my actions due to lack of strength,” Hidimbi retorts. “Quite the opposite.”

He ought to hold his tongue, but this is the closest she has ever come to speaking of their shared past. “And why was that?”

She is quiet, for so long he thinks she must have forgotten he ever asked at all. “Love,” she says, without meeting his gaze. “An excess of love.”

Another man--that fool Duryodhana--would assume she speaks of him. Bhima knows better. 

“He knew,” Bhima says roughly. “And in the end--” _Before I killed him_ \-- “your brother was grateful. That you had saved him from himself, I mean.”

As soon as the words leave his mouth, he regrets them. This is why Yudhisthira ought always to speak for them all, or Arjuna draw away all attention, or the twins to charm, and Bhima only to loom in the background and look sinister. But Hidimbi does not laugh scornfully, as his cousins did so often, or shake her head in dismay, as even Mother and Yudhisthira sometimes do. Instead she looks at him as though he has said something very wise indeed. 

“So I pray, always.”

*

The last weeks of her pregnancy leave his wife too exhausted to maintain the beautiful illusion in which she first met him, the one she still does her best to wear whenever she thinks about it. Bhima doesn’t mind; he has known her long enough over these months to find her all the more beautiful for the curve of her teeth, the redness of her lips, the fierce strength of her broad shoulders. 

He’s so lost in admiring her that he startles at the sound of her voice. “Will you forgive me? If the child should cost me my life--” Hidimbi raises a hand to interrupt his protests that no such thing shall happen, that he won’t allow it. “--will you forget that the only reason he came into being was because I demanded you as the price of your family’s freedom?”

Something in Bhima’s very soul bristles at the thought of being treated as a commodity, as though a beast of burden, or worse, a slave. But that doesn’t matter, that isn’t what happened, that isn’t what he wants to remember--

“I chose to stay,” he reminds her; “I wanted this.” Her eyes, however, are distant with sudden pain. 

“Will you forget me?” Hidimbi demands, reaching wildly for his fingers, and he croons: “No. Never.”

*

Ghatotkacha turns one month old the day before he is meant to leave this forest forever, and for one mad moment, Bhima wants to pretend he’s forgotten. Perhaps his brothers would understand; perhaps Mother would believe Hidimbi had given into her darkest instincts and devoured Bhima whole. Perhaps Duryodhana would be either stupid or satisfied enough to believe the sons of Pandu dead. It doesn’t matter, no really: not so long as he can stay here, with the son he adores, in this forest that has given him freedom for the first time he can remember. 

Here he isn’t Kunti’s son, or Pandu’s heir; not Great-Uncle Bhishma’s hope nor Uncle Dhritrashtra’s despair; not Yudhisthira’s responsibility nor Arjuna and the twins’ protector. 

He closes his eyes, praying to Hidimbi’s goddess for strength.

“You won’t,” she says calmly, as though one of her unrevealed magical powers is awareness of his thoughts--and….is it? Certainly he should have liked to know that before. “Try as you might, you can’t leave them behind.”

Bhima opens his eyes, and tries to smile. “And why is that?”

“Love,” she says bleakly. “An excess of love. You and I are too much alike, my dearest.”

“I will remember you,” he tells her, “and the boy. I will think of you every morning and every night.”

“And yet--” Her face has shaped itself once more into that half-smile, eyes bright with bitter laughter. “And yet it won’t be enough to bring you back. Not when the human world waits.”

Honesty is the very least he owes her. “No.”  _ If only _ \--

“And so I send you back to your mother and brothers,” Hidimbi declares, “ a gentleman at last.”


End file.
